


361. hummingbirds

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [277]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 08:03:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10532298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Some shapeshifters ride a bus.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: slight body horror]

There aren’t a _lot_ of feathers. Just a quick blur of rainbows on the inside of Helena’s wrist, because they look pretty, because she saw the birds outside the bus window and wanted to see how it felt. The answer: good. Sarah’s elbow in her ribs: not good. Helena twists the feathers back to boring pale skin and sighs.

“Pull it together,” Sarah mutters. She’s slouched over the bus seat next to Helena, easy, like she’s never had wings, like one time when they were hungry she didn’t sigh and grow a mouthful of teeth and—

Helena looks sideways at Sarah. Sarah looks very human. Helena shifts her nose a little bit on her face, because Sarah’s looks a bit rounder than hers. “Stop,” Sarah says, and Helena does. Sarah isn’t even _looking_ at her. If Sarah grew another pair of eyes under her hair Helena is going to be mad, because that’s cheating, because Sarah can’t be mad at her for the feathers if Sarah has extra eyes to use to watch Helena growing feathers. Sarah is looking across the aisle of the bus, people-watching. Boring. Boring boring. This morning Helena grew a beak and sang to the birds outside and they all got scared and flew away. She’d rather do that. This is _very_ boring.

“When are we getting to there,” she says, only she didn’t get the tongue right, so it comes out a little strange. A man on the bus frowns in her direction. Helena lets her tongue flop out of her mouth, wiggles the forked ends of it. His face does a funny thing and he looks away again. Helena snickers. Licks her chin.

“Helena,” Sarah says, voice strained and aching and human. So human it’s boring. So human it makes Helena – well, that doesn’t matter. She pulls her tongue back into her mouth. She unforks the end of it. She slides lower in her seat.

“It’s just a _visit_ ,” Sarah says; Helena turns to look at her, finally, all the way, and she’s looking back at Helena with a lot of human feelings on her face. When they were very small Sarah would grow fins on her cheeks, and that was always Helena’s favorite, and Sarah always remembered that. Helena doesn’t like looking at her anymore.

“I know,” Helena says, voice small.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just – _be normal_ ,” Sarah says.

Helena sinks lower. “I know.”

“No you _don’t_ ,” Sarah says. “Come on, Helena, it isn’t – it isn’t _safe_ for you to be doing this shit, you _know_ that. What am I gonna do if you get caught, huh? If you get on the Internet? If some twats in white labcoats come and take you, what the hell am I gonna do? You wanna tell me, Helena?”

“Sorry,” Helena says. At this point she’s almost lying down in her bus seat. Her legs stretch all the way into the aisle, and not even because she’s making them longer. She isn’t. She wants to make them smaller, but she can’t, because that would make Sarah look even more tired than she does now.

“Sit up,” Sarah says. Helena does.

“All the way,” Sarah says. Helena does.

“Good,” Sarah says. “Now – stay there and don’t _do anything_.”

Helena does. She looks out the window. The woman outside has funny hair and there’s a dog with a nice tail and the birds are singing and none of it matters. When they leave the bus it is going to be on four legs, and that’s just because they’ll each have two. Helena doesn’t slouch down. Her wrists have a freckle on them, and also some veins, and that’s it.

She tilts her eyes sideways again, which means she looks in the corners of them and which does _not_ mean she actually tilts them in face. Sarah is staring out into the aisle again, biting her lip, drumming her feet on the ground. Where does she learn these things. Helena doesn’t know any of them at all.

She leans over in her seat so that her side is pressed to Sarah’s. “Thank you for keeping me safe,” she says.

“I worry,” Sarah says, pressing her shoulder back. “You know that? I worry about you all the time.”

“Sorry,” Helena says again.

Sarah sighs. “Don’t be sorry,” she mutters, and she pulls her arm out from between them and hugs Helena’s shoulder with it. “I’m your sister, yeah? Comes with the territory.”

Helena doesn’t know what to say to that one – _sorry_ again, or _thank you_ again, or just _I love you_. Instead she lets herself be held. One of Sarah’s fingers taps her on the shoulder, and Helena looks over at it out of the corners of her eyes. For a second Sarah’s fingernail is bright hummingbird feathers – only a second, though, and then it’s gone again. Helena laughs. When she looks back at Sarah’s face, she can see Sarah smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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